If Congress kills Iran deal, sanctions would lose India's support: US

Washington, July 18: White House has cautioned a hostile Republican controlled Congress against killing the historic Iran nuclear deal saying loss of support from countries like India would lead to a collapse of the sanctions regime. "The key to the success of this latest round of sanctions has been the aggressive enforcement of countries around the world, including countries that aren't even a party to this particular agreement -- countries like India, Japan and South Korea," the White House Press Secretary told reporters Friday. These countries "previously relied heavily on the importation of Iranian oil -- and by scaling back their oil purchases that had a negative impact on Iran's economy but also had a negative impact on the domestic economy of those individual countries," he pointed out. "So the point is that the sanctions regime would collapse if Congress were to kill this deal," Earnest said. "And what that means is it means that the international leverage that we have previously used to reach this agreement would vanish." "The second is, Iran would still obtain the financial benefits of sanctions relief -- something that our critics have described as a financial windfall," Earnest said. "And the problem is, Iran is going to get all of that money and the United States doesn't get anything for it."